Historic buildings in Scotland get cash boost

MORE than £1.6m has been awarded to help repair and restore eight historic buildings in Scotland.

A Glasgow cemetery, the City Observatory Complex in Edinburgh and an extremely rare locomotive turntable in Aberdeen are among the project that will benefit from the cash boost.

Historic Scotland’s Building Repairs Grants Scheme was announced today by Fiona Hyslop, the Cabinet Secretary for Culture, today.

She was at Castle Mill Works, the former North British Rubber Company offices, in central Edinburgh, which itself has been awarded £500,000 as part of the scheme.

Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Culture, gets a tour of the former North British Rubber Factory in Edinburgh

Speaking from the site, Ms Hyslop, said: “This scheme helps to protect and promote, as well as transform and bring back into use, some of Scotland’s most historically and architecturally significant buildings.

“This magnificent former Victorian factory in Fountainbridge, is one of eight projects in total, throughout Scotland, to receive grant funding and aims to see this derelict building once again filled with purpose and a take on a new role as a creative arts hub.

“Across the country, historic buildings which played an important role in our past also have an important role to play in our future, with schemes such as these helping to tell a new chapter in the building and its surrounding community’s future.”